The Curse of The Jade Figurine
The guilty little imperialist has left.
She was replaced by the mildy spastic little imperialist last evening as, at 7:30, we boarded the boat that will take us most of the way down the Yangtze river to Shanghai. If you've got your map of China handy, the Yangtze, or the Chang Jiang, is the southernmost major river in the country. It's muddy, and it's in the news recently for being the site of the new Three Gorges dam, which is going to flood most of the area around it in order to create a hydroelectric powerplant. The Chinese government is relocating 1.2 million people, which is like a little eminent domain picnic for them. Still, it's very controversial because a lot of environmentalists think it will create more severe flooding problems. And we're going to roll by it.
The boat looks like a Mississippi river boat, sans the big wheels. About five decks with tiny staterooms (well, ours is tiny), and classic boat things like a bar, a library and an internet. Well, perhaps not the last one. But I've never slept on a boat or really spent any time on anything bigger than a Chris Craft. So, last night in a manner far from the cosmopolitan, I ran around the boat taking pictures and poking my head into things.
I can see why Agatha Christie and her cohort got so wound up about murders in these sorts of places. There's something highly sinister about luxury, a river, foreigners and China that makes me look for murder and intrigue in every corner.
I also spent a fair amount of time on the rooftop deck imagining various scenarios from Masterpiece theatre as we took off under a very orange moon. I was a governess, sent to China to tend for a rich (but handsome) Earl's children. Or- better - I am a lady of the noble class, but my stern and uncompromising father is sending me away to China to be a governess because he found out I was in love with the poor miller's son who is sensitive and intelligent but not of my class. AND I have an illegitimate baby. And I am a nurse. So I can cure typhoid. And Yellow Fever. And when I get to Shanghai to work for my corrupt Uncle I find out he's dying! And I have to run his business! And I'm the only woman in business in Shanghai and my Uncle's parter, a devastatingly handsome but very surly young man has to help me. We bicker. Man, do we bicker. But we get the job done. All that jade exporting. And I end up understanding a lot about China and escaping my xenophobic background to lead a rebellion of the peasants in order to end the barbaric British practice of importing opium to ease the trade deficit. I am almost killed (by my own countrymen no less!), but we escape to Australia (me and the young partner) where I find out he is surly because he was kicked out of Oxford for a crime he didn't commit and hates people like me. But then I tell him the truth, that the baby's father did not die of whooping cough like I said and...
Anyway. 19th century British novel or Danielle Steel. You decide. This is the primary influence of this boat on my imagination. It was really exciting for me. It _is_ really exciting for me. And there's all these hilarious planned activities on board. Like acupunture demonstrations, which are currently being done in the same room I'm in on a man with a prodigious amount of wiry backhair - nevertheless, the audience is rivited. And mostly 80 years old. So maybe they don't have a choice.
We departed gqing, the former "Chungking", where we dithered away the day, but actually saw a very cool site - the Stillwell museum that honors General John Stillwell, the American general that helped the Chinese fight the Japanese in WWII. You might have heard of the Flying Tigers - a volunteer air unit that preceeded Stillwell's more official assistance. At that time the Americans worked with both the Kuomintang (the "democratic" political party of Sun Yat Sen and Chiang Kai-Shek) and the Communists in order to defeat the Japanese in China and in Burma. So we're wadering around the museum in the former home of Stillwell in Chongqing when one of the Harvard alums reveals that he was one of the pilots that flew supply routes from Burma under Stillwell! He's going to tell us about it later. That's one of the cool things about this trip - sometimes, in museums where I'm remembering my history, I'm surrounded by people who lived and remember these events. There are a lot of people here with really interesting stories - I mean, I'm convinced everyone has one (except maybe the bus switchers) and they're slowly leaking out. One woman's Dad was a naval engineer on the Yangtze and later went to Casablanca on a top secret mine-planting mission.
I am acutely aware of my parochial midwestern background with these sorts of tales flying around.
Yesterday we also saw Pandas at the zoo. I bought a panda puppet which is now the object of most of the communication between Mr. Frustratingly Good Question and myself. He asks the panda a question and the panda answers him. Why not? It's puppet diplomacy. We both think the Panda puppet - he's a French panda named Frederick by the way - is very critical of humans but very interesting. I suspect Frederick is a Maoist spy sent by the government to monitor us.
So, two days on a boat. Lots of spare time which will be nice. I will finally read, perhaps. And document the emerging class warfare between the people who got fancy cabins and the rest of us. I suggested we start smoking pipes and gambling in the lower decks to give this trip an air of historical authenticity.
That's right! I'm an Irish servant, forced to go to China, and below decks where the relentlessly classist British force us with the Chinese, I discover an opium ring willing to do anything to succeed. I team up with a young Chinese worker (this is a post-colonialist novel)nd we trace the opium ring all the way to the Provincial Governor of Shanghai...
What will we do?
How will we stop this sinister trade?
When is lunch served?
find out next time -
She was replaced by the mildy spastic little imperialist last evening as, at 7:30, we boarded the boat that will take us most of the way down the Yangtze river to Shanghai. If you've got your map of China handy, the Yangtze, or the Chang Jiang, is the southernmost major river in the country. It's muddy, and it's in the news recently for being the site of the new Three Gorges dam, which is going to flood most of the area around it in order to create a hydroelectric powerplant. The Chinese government is relocating 1.2 million people, which is like a little eminent domain picnic for them. Still, it's very controversial because a lot of environmentalists think it will create more severe flooding problems. And we're going to roll by it.
The boat looks like a Mississippi river boat, sans the big wheels. About five decks with tiny staterooms (well, ours is tiny), and classic boat things like a bar, a library and an internet. Well, perhaps not the last one. But I've never slept on a boat or really spent any time on anything bigger than a Chris Craft. So, last night in a manner far from the cosmopolitan, I ran around the boat taking pictures and poking my head into things.
I can see why Agatha Christie and her cohort got so wound up about murders in these sorts of places. There's something highly sinister about luxury, a river, foreigners and China that makes me look for murder and intrigue in every corner.
I also spent a fair amount of time on the rooftop deck imagining various scenarios from Masterpiece theatre as we took off under a very orange moon. I was a governess, sent to China to tend for a rich (but handsome) Earl's children. Or- better - I am a lady of the noble class, but my stern and uncompromising father is sending me away to China to be a governess because he found out I was in love with the poor miller's son who is sensitive and intelligent but not of my class. AND I have an illegitimate baby. And I am a nurse. So I can cure typhoid. And Yellow Fever. And when I get to Shanghai to work for my corrupt Uncle I find out he's dying! And I have to run his business! And I'm the only woman in business in Shanghai and my Uncle's parter, a devastatingly handsome but very surly young man has to help me. We bicker. Man, do we bicker. But we get the job done. All that jade exporting. And I end up understanding a lot about China and escaping my xenophobic background to lead a rebellion of the peasants in order to end the barbaric British practice of importing opium to ease the trade deficit. I am almost killed (by my own countrymen no less!), but we escape to Australia (me and the young partner) where I find out he is surly because he was kicked out of Oxford for a crime he didn't commit and hates people like me. But then I tell him the truth, that the baby's father did not die of whooping cough like I said and...
Anyway. 19th century British novel or Danielle Steel. You decide. This is the primary influence of this boat on my imagination. It was really exciting for me. It _is_ really exciting for me. And there's all these hilarious planned activities on board. Like acupunture demonstrations, which are currently being done in the same room I'm in on a man with a prodigious amount of wiry backhair - nevertheless, the audience is rivited. And mostly 80 years old. So maybe they don't have a choice.
We departed gqing, the former "Chungking", where we dithered away the day, but actually saw a very cool site - the Stillwell museum that honors General John Stillwell, the American general that helped the Chinese fight the Japanese in WWII. You might have heard of the Flying Tigers - a volunteer air unit that preceeded Stillwell's more official assistance. At that time the Americans worked with both the Kuomintang (the "democratic" political party of Sun Yat Sen and Chiang Kai-Shek) and the Communists in order to defeat the Japanese in China and in Burma. So we're wadering around the museum in the former home of Stillwell in Chongqing when one of the Harvard alums reveals that he was one of the pilots that flew supply routes from Burma under Stillwell! He's going to tell us about it later. That's one of the cool things about this trip - sometimes, in museums where I'm remembering my history, I'm surrounded by people who lived and remember these events. There are a lot of people here with really interesting stories - I mean, I'm convinced everyone has one (except maybe the bus switchers) and they're slowly leaking out. One woman's Dad was a naval engineer on the Yangtze and later went to Casablanca on a top secret mine-planting mission.
I am acutely aware of my parochial midwestern background with these sorts of tales flying around.
Yesterday we also saw Pandas at the zoo. I bought a panda puppet which is now the object of most of the communication between Mr. Frustratingly Good Question and myself. He asks the panda a question and the panda answers him. Why not? It's puppet diplomacy. We both think the Panda puppet - he's a French panda named Frederick by the way - is very critical of humans but very interesting. I suspect Frederick is a Maoist spy sent by the government to monitor us.
So, two days on a boat. Lots of spare time which will be nice. I will finally read, perhaps. And document the emerging class warfare between the people who got fancy cabins and the rest of us. I suggested we start smoking pipes and gambling in the lower decks to give this trip an air of historical authenticity.
That's right! I'm an Irish servant, forced to go to China, and below decks where the relentlessly classist British force us with the Chinese, I discover an opium ring willing to do anything to succeed. I team up with a young Chinese worker (this is a post-colonialist novel)nd we trace the opium ring all the way to the Provincial Governor of Shanghai...
What will we do?
How will we stop this sinister trade?
When is lunch served?
find out next time -
posted by The Gadabout at 11:45 AM
1 Comments:
excellent novellas. I also loved the prunes dialogues. The evidence that you're meant to be an artist and not a lawyer is within your words.
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